Model: M41-A Colonial Marine Pulse Rifle
Type: Ballistic and Explosive.
Scale: Character
Skill: Firearms (Pulse Rifle); Grenades.
Crew: 1
Ammo: 100 magazine (Pulse Rifle, 10mm caseless explosive tipped); 30 (micro-grenade launcher)
Cost: 4,000 credits
Availability: 4, F
Body: 2D (Strength+2D stun damage for melee attack)
Fire Rate: 1 (semi-automatic, normal damage per bullet); 3 (burst fire, +1D); Automatic fire.
Fire Control: 1D (semi-automatic); 0D (burst fire); -1D per +1D damage (Automatic fire).
Range: 2-25/50/75m (Pulse Rifle); 5-25/100/200m (micro-grenade launcher)
Damage: 4D (Pulse Rifle); 4D/3D/2D (micro-grenade launcher)
Rules for Automatic Fire: For every dice of damage added (starting at 4D), raise the Difficulty to hit by one (starting from 'Easy' Difficulty, like with most other ranged weapons in Star Wars D6), and decrease the ammo by 1D bullets. Autofire counts as "multiple actions", so every Dice taken from the ammo also counts against any other actions taken that round. This is to show how someone is taking the time to aim and hold the weapon while it discharges that many rounds of ammunition to cause the desired amount of damage to the target, while other things could happen around them at the same time, causing the need to dodge or take other actions in the same combat round.
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-Description: This is a weapon much preferred by Colonial Marines in the Colonies and Expansion regions of the galaxy. While the Empire has its Stormtroopers, the Republic and New Republic had their armies and defenders, and many other enforcers have their own militant forces, they all use standard blaster weaponry based upon Tibana gas discharge technology. Back druing the days of the Old Republic, the phase from Pulse-wave blasters to Tibana gas was a swift one after seeing the improvements of such weaponry. However, the Colonial Marines, a military group charged with the security and escort duties of colonists seeking new worlds to call home, were never given the funding to switch over to these new blasters. Being seen as less than standard military, their needs were considered unimportant, often relying more on what the very colonies they were to protect could offer them to perform their services.
As time would wind on, the CMs would look towards other avenues to find weapons technologies that could stand against Tibana gas blasters. Pirates and privateers were getting deadlier, since they could aquire such weapons much more easily by underhanded means. The CMs lost many battles, and even planets, due to organized pirate activity. Most pleas to the Republic bureaucrats were never answered, citing that defending these worlds was the duty of the Colonial Marines, and that if they were unable to perform this duty then they were not worth their pay.
Both the Marines and the Colonists were deeply angered by this, and many pulled their resources to find new ways to arm themselves, even taking a new look at older designs. This attempt struck paydirt. While many older style weapons were considered out of date and behind at one point, many of these were never looked at again with applications by newer available technologies. Pulse wave blasters had seen their day after the coming of Tibana gas, and linear rail gun technologies almost saw the same with repulsorlift engines.
While a pulse wave has nothing close to the range and effectiveness of a Tibana gas blaster, it does have the ability to launch projectiles at great distances, if applied with modified ammo feeds, firing chambers, proper barrels for focusing their energy, and a slightly adjusted power feed and regulation. Firearms themselves had not been a standard of any kind throughout the galaxy for as far back as anyone could possibly remember, and were considered the last resort of a desperate man stuck on a backwater planet somewhere.
With the launch system applied by a pulse wave and its power source in the stock of the weapon, this left much room to be utilized in the bullet itself. Each round could now be built for the sole purpose of causing damge upon impact, creating a caseless round of ammunition that was built for hard impact and explosive delivery after doing so. Without the need of a casing or chemical propellant, the bullets could be much smaller, allowing for greater ammo capacity.
Combine this with a microgrenade launcher for extra punch as needed, and you have yourself an impressive frontline weapon!
When several ideas came together, the first Pulse Wave Firearm was drafted on a drawing board. The problem everyone feared were the logistics and funding behind making such a weapon work and be readily available to the Colonial Marines willing to fight for the people of the Colony and Expansion worlds. As it turned out, with available technologies the weapon's design and mass production would be a synch. Even better, since firearms were at almost no demand whatsoever on such a large scale, funding was easy to obtain, especially since larger businesses thought it was a matter of time before they could cash in with waiting Blaster weaponry on the side.
A year later, the first standard pulse rilfes were issued to all the CMs, and the tide of combat between them and their enemies began to tip greatly. The weapons turned out to be more reliable than anyone had expected, even the Marines and their benefactors. Weapons manufacturers saw this and began to turn things around and try to make large profits on the weapons. But the Colonials had already gained control over most of the designs of these weapons through contract agreements signed by all relevant parties, before anyone saw how well the weapons would perform in live combat, and eventually built their own production facilities for these weapons when the companies began raising prices.
In short, these companies shot themselves in the foot and lost a hell of a good product that could have brought in lots of profit for them.
It is said that the events that gave rise to the Colonial Marines as a force to be reckoned with in the galaxy were the beginnings of what would become the CIS later on and give rise to the Galactic Empire. During the Empire's time, there was much strife between the Colonials and the Imperial Navy and Army, but not as strongly as between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance. The Colonials simply had little reason to fight the Empire since business between the two never deteriorated too far to insight rebellion, and the two gained a healthy respect for the other and what they could offer, as well as what both needed from the other.
Long in the days ahead of the New Republic, the Pulse Rifle is the standard weapon of the Colonial Marines as they continue their duty of safeguarding colony movements filled with people looking for a new world to call home...

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